A new rigor contract test (public-contract) asserts every check result —
allowed, denied, missing_node, no_config, cycle, threshold, binary — carries
possibility, reliability, validity, and reason with defined invariants
(possibility/reliability in [0,1], validity labels in the taxonomy, denied
decisions leak zero reliability, JSON round-trip stable).
The pin surfaced three real shape gaps in AuthorizationChecker, now fixed:
the no_relation fast-path miss and binary direct-miss emitted no validity,
and the binary direct-allow path omitted reliability. All structural and
binary return sites now emit the canonical {possibility, reason, reliability,
validity} contract.
Also pins isReachable's boolean|null deferral contract, explain enrichment,
snapshot round-trip outcome preservation, and read-idempotent node queries.
A new rigor campaign (snapshot-adversarial-fuzz) hunts malformed restore
buffers: every read must succeed into a structurally sound graph or throw
a clean bounded error. It surfaced three real bugs now fixed:
1. BinaryReader threw a caller-contract TypeError on Buffer/Uint8Array
input (fs-style restore) instead of reading it — normalized to a
DataView over the real ArrayBuffer.
2. readBytes built its slice with this.view.buffer + this.offset,
ignoring view.byteOffset — pooled Buffers (byteOffset 768+) read the
wrong memory region entirely, corrupting restored graphs.
3. The edge gate validated array contents but not the header count
fields: a desynced edgeIndex (indices build iterates edgeIndex, not
array length) turned a one-byte flip into a 13-second effective hang.
The gate now cross-validates numNodes/numEdges/edgeIndex/
nextRelationId/valueCount/degreeCount against their sections, and
LazyNodeIdTable bounds-guards garbage offset slices.
Binary mode now carries validity on every return site (direct, logical,
loop, early-termination, structural), gated like the normal path.
The errors-skill's two-pass model applied without a journal: the caller
owns the temporal context. Every decision-flipping temporal feature (the
clock behind TTL gates, challenge-proof expiry, value decay) is now
parameterized as options.now, so an explain rerun that replays the
original temporal parameters reproduces the original decision exactly.
Threaded now through: the comparator's operand value paths
(_getCachedDirectValue/_extractValues/isWithinTTL), the challenge proof
lookup, and the multi_hop value collection (isWithinTTL + blur). All four
result caches bypass cached decisions when the clock is pinned (rule-
result cache, the checker's rule/direct caches, and the comparator's
derived operand cache) — interleaved pinned-clock checks are per-time
with no cross-contamination.
The explain serializer records request.temporal.now so the caller knows
exactly what to replay. The happy path stays minimal and fast (no now ->
no parameter, no cache changes); the rerun (explain with the temporal
context) carries the full diagnostics.
Pins: interleaved fresh/expired/expired-again comparator checks, the
explain replay of both decisions + the recorded temporal context, and
challenge-proof expiry replay.
Per the trust-boundary direction (the caller owns evidence validation):
- Explicit possibilistic semantics module (src/core/possibility.js): the
single authoritative home for what each operator means (max = disjunctive
already-valid; min = unvalidified conjunctive ranking with the K-
validification and surfaced conflict mass; product = Thm-4 heuristic;
interior OWA = non-maxitive heuristic; reliability = adaptation, never
conflated with plausibility).
- Provenance is opt-in (re-entrant tracing practice): default check
results carry only {label, operator, regime}; conflictMass,
validifiedPossibility, sources, and nonMaxitive appear only under
includeMeta and on the explain surface. The direct-check cache now
caches only the meta-less form — includeMeta callers always get a fresh
full evaluation (previously a cached minimal result was served for
includeMeta requests, silently stripping detail).
- Audit affordance: new Arbiter({ audit }) emits one record per check
(decision, possibility, binary, partialGraphUsed, validityLabel,
sources). The engine stores nothing — the caller owns persistence;
zero cost when the hook is absent (and the full validity is forced only
on audit-enabled deployments).
- DoS hardening: partial-graph size limits are enforced BEFORE the
context allocation (the caller-supplied overlay is the per-check
allocation point); the CondensedGraphBinary reader gained full bounds
guards so malformed snapshot buffers fail with clean errors instead of
RangeError crashes or oversized allocations.
- New security-affordance pins: gating, audit records, and pre-allocation
limits.
Adds an epistemic validity layer in the spirit of the zig-contour fusion
spec: every check result now carries a validity block {label, operator,
regime, sources, conflictMass, validifiedPossibility, nonMaxitive}.
- Relations accept a validity label (default heuristic = unlabeled input).
- Labels propagate through fusion: identity/max preserve the weakest
source label (max is already valid under arbitrary dependence); min
(conjunctive: intersection, chain, TTU, multi_hop, parent) is
approximate at best, surfaces the conflict mass (1 - possibility) that
was previously dropped, and exposes the arbitrary-regime validification
min(1, K*gamma); product-style operators (exclusion, defeasible) and
interior OWA averaging are always heuristic, with nonMaxitive flagged.
- Reliability and validity are now explicitly distinct: reliability stays
the scalar confidence adaptation; validity tracks the epistemic label.
- The hottest paths attach a shared frozen default block instead of
allocating (perf A/B shows no regression: ~300k ops/s direct both ways).
- Pre-existing fixes surfaced while wiring: the array-form logical config
dropped top-level aggregator/owaWeights (average union compiled as max),
and _createStandardResult dropped unknown fields (validity never
survived rule results).
New campaign validity-parity.test.js pins the label taxonomy, conflict
mass, validification, weakest-propagation, and the reliability/validity
separation. Suites: rigor 203/0, full 803/741/0.
The reliability gap found last round was invisible to every parity mirror
(they compared possibility only). Hardened the existing campaigns so the
mirrors carry reliability too:
- batch-order-parity: batch ops carry reliability; the mirror tracks
last-write-wins reliability and the crucible asserts engine reliability
parity (mirror corrected: add-on-existing preserves reliability, it does
not reset it).
- rule-kind-partial-parity: the TTU differential property now generates
per-edge reliabilities and asserts the winning intermediate's
reliability (tupleset.reli * computed.reli); a new chain reliability
differential property does the same for 2-step chains.
- snapshot-quantization-parity: edges carry deterministic reliabilities and
the round-trip pins the codec's reliability channel (product-aware
tolerance: chain reliability multiplies two quantized inputs).
- model-based-graph: the reference model tracks reliability per tuple and
checks it alongside possibility for direct and chain queries.
The model crucible immediately caught a real bug: the direct-check fast
path returned the relation's reliability on a DENIED decision (possibility
0), while the rule-collection path zeroes it — denied results leaked
reliability. Both fast-path branches (direct match and threshold_not_met)
now report reliability 0 when the decision is denied.
Systemic reliability gap found by the probe sweep: the compiled evaluation
paths never emitted the reliability the engine computes.
- Compiled _evaluateDirect omitted the relation's reliability, and the
chain/multi_hop rules hardcoded reliability: 1.0 — so check() results
reported 1.0 for any rule whose decision came through a chain, multi_hop,
union, intersection, exclusion, or defeasible combination.
- The chain and multi_hop traversals now track per-path reliability (product
of edge reliabilities) and report the winning path's value; the compiled
and fallback logical operators (union/intersection/exclusion, direct_list
fast path, early exits) report the selected child's reliability
(max/min child or OWA trace index; exclusion multiplies both legs), and
normal-mode defeasible combines base x requires x defeater reliabilities.
- The checker's logical fast path dropped collectedValues from union/
intersection/exclusion results; it now passes them through.
- MultiHopRule.valueManager was read off relationManager where the real
arbiter keeps it on the arbiter — collectValues: true on a multi_hop rule
with a value-carrying edge crashed the evaluation (error result, silent
denial). Now resolved at the arbiter level with a relationManager
fallback for stubs.
Campaign pins: reliability per kind (chain/multi_hop product, union/intersection
selected child, exclusion/defeasible product), and multi_hop value collection
through persistent and partial contexts.
The binary branch of AuthorizationChecker.check rebuilt its options with a
fixed six-field object, silently discarding partialGraphContext (and any
other caller option) — binary checks denied grants the normal path
allowed. Now spreads all caller options through. binary-partial-parity
pins: partial grants above the threshold allow, below deny, persistent
wins over partial, and binary decisions agree with normal decisions on
the same overlay.
John Dvorak